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Usually when a musician "goes country" the results are mediocre at best.
Even when they're a talented songwriter/musician and have a strikingly lovely voice (Seattle resident Zera Mavel falls into all of these categories) the transition from pop/rock to something a bit more agrarian can end up sounding cheesy, phony- corny.
The reason that Zera's solo debut, "Birds and Bullets Fly", works where others end up sounding like cowboy-hat wearing buffons is that Ms Marvel understands moderation. She has a solid understanding of country music but never takes this too far, never ends up in "yee-ha!" territory... never inflicts a bad "country" accent on her ultra-sultry voice.
She doesn't so much "go country" as she does wander down dusty back roads seeing where the stories in her head lead her.
The end result is a country-tinged noir pop, the tales of a woman too world-wise to be the ingenue and too hopefully and modest to be the diva. These songs have a Patsy Cline-like conflict between the gritty and the polished that give them texture and warmth, no producer has mixed the humanity out of Zera's work. But the polish she's applied give the pop element a real weight... you can imagine her sharing a number with the 1960s Frank Sinatra (check out "People Like Us").
In the end Zera Marvel pulls off this collection thanks to honesty: the open baring of her heart and her sincere appreciation of americana.
Recommended.
My favorite track: "The Carpenter"
There's only one dissapointing thing about this CD: it won't load onto my computer so I can't import it into my Brand Name Personal Portable MP3 Player. As such I've never gotten to hear these songs at that Can't Escape Them Volume, which is too bad because I'm sure they sound even more stunning.
PS: I *LOVE* the color palette chosen for the album art.
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Zera Marvel:
http://www.zeramarvel.com/home.html
http://www.myspace.com/zeramarvel
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